


Quiet Mode

by starandrea



Category: Almost Human
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-08
Updated: 2015-03-08
Packaged: 2018-03-17 01:34:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,365
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3510233
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starandrea/pseuds/starandrea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are things Dorian doesn't discuss with John: his life expectancy, his plans for the future.  There are things John won't discuss too: anything he thinks Dorian already knows.  </p><p>The dragon doesn't speak at all, but it does answer some questions.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Quiet Mode

**Author's Note:**

  * For [charlottechill](https://archiveofourown.org/users/charlottechill/gifts).



> Written for Charlotte C. Hill and Escapade ~ thanks for the kind words and inspiration <3 Kudos on 25 years, and all good wishes for the next!

Dorian didn't plan to give John a dragon.  He thought a vintage RealCat 2X would fulfill the primary goal of monitoring John in a crowded and unpredictable environment.  It would have the added benefit of being unobtrusive, which the dragon is not.

Dorian calculates a 76 percent chance that John enjoys feline company despite his protestations to the contrary.  Cats make up 62 percent of the observable attendee pets at the convention they've inadvertently crashed, and they're represented in the greatest variety on the vendor floor.  The choice of ad hoc surveillance avatar is both practical and convenient.

Yet when John wakes up from his completely off-the-record nap at 16:23, there's a pair of gold reptilian eyes watching him from what he probably considers too close a distance.  What John treats as the appropriate boundaries of personal space has increased lately.  Dorian doesn't know why, but the chance that it’s a direct result of his own actions is discouragingly high.

"Dorian."  John's voice is calm.  He’s never officially fallen asleep on a stake-out before, but in the 2.7 years since they started working together, Dorian has seen him regain consciousness 33 times.  When not under the influence of drugs or pain, he frequently attempts to disguise the fact that he was asleep at all.

“Yes, John?”

“Why is there a lizard staring at me?”  John has clearly decided that he’s not in danger, which is gratifying.  Dorian shouldn’t have left him alone, but since no account of this day mentions John’s brief bout of unconsciousness, the transgression will likely go unreported.

“What lizard?” Dorian asks, looking up from the holographic interface long enough to scan John’s immediate vicinity.  He supposes a synthetic dragon could be loosely identified as a lizard.

John reaches out and carefully pokes the dragon.  “This lizard,” he says.  It might be sitting too close.

“I don’t see a lizard,” Dorian tells him.  “Are you feeling all right?  Do you hear anything: voices, music, a rushing sound?  Is the lizard talking to you?”

“Funny,” John mutters, rolling onto his side and pushing himself up.  The action puts his back to the dragon, and Dorian recognizes the trust for what it is.  He catalogues those signs every day.

“I needed something to keep an eye on you while I tracked down sources,” Dorian says, returning his observable attention to the interface.  “A hackable RealPet was the most convenient option.”

"You should have woken me up."  John is slow to stand, and Dorian doesn’t like it.  John is injured and exhausted, run down after a string of cases filled with bruising days and sleepless nights, but he won’t take personal time if it means Dorian gets reassigned while he's gone.

“Were you asleep?” Dorian asks, eyes trained on the interface in front of him.  “I didn’t notice.”

John moves more easily than his reluctance would suggest, and Dorian remotely overrides the dragon’s programming so it doesn’t follow.  John is standing behind him before he speaks, looking over Dorian’s shoulder… and then squeezing it, his hand a deliberate weight, each one of his fingers pressing hot through Dorian’s shirt.  “Thanks, man.”

It’s the first casual touch John has offered in more than three days.  Dorian is careful not to react, giving no sign John can detect that he’s grateful or relieved.  They have work to do.  The fact that they can still do it together is enough.

***

Watching the dragon follow John around the convention hotel is the highlight of Dorian's afternoon.  RealCon 2050 is celebrating the 25th anniversary of branded synthetic pets by Faraday, and there’s no better cover for another set of eyes.  Or some extra heat.  He hasn't told John about the custom and very illegal flamethrower buried inside the dragon’s head.

Not yet.  Dorian isn’t optimistic enough to think he’ll never need to know, but at least in dire circumstances the mod is more likely to be welcomed than disabled.

***

“This is us checking in,” John tells Sandra when she orders them back to the precinct.  Sandra was at work when Dorian arrived with John this morning, and they’re two hours and 47 minutes into the night shift now.  “We’re fine.  Dorian’s got a lead.”

“It wasn’t a question, John.”  Sandra sounds neutral, and Dorian expects that John will win this one.  Sandra usually sounds exasperated when she knows John is going to disobey and she can’t afford to lose him.  She lets him go whenever she can.

Dorian doesn’t think John appreciates her enough.

“What can we do there that we can’t do here?” John wants to know.  Dorian could make him a list, but it’s clearly a rhetorical question and the chance that John will find the response funny is low.

“Roll call,” Sandra says.  “Sleep.  Get Dorian a full night’s charge.  You’ve had enough life or death cases lately; you might as well take advantage of the ones that aren’t.”

John’s response isn’t anything that Dorian expected.  “We are,” he says.  “Look, I’ll clock off.  I have a room.  Dorian can use the hotel’s charging bay.  No reason to drive across town just to come back in the morning.”

“You want to spend the night at the convention?”  Sandra sounds like she can’t decide whether to be skeptical or amused.  Dorian is familiar with that conundrum when it comes to John.

“Dorian got me a dragon,” John says.

Dorian looks at him in surprise.

“I see,” Sandra says.  

Dorian doesn’t.  He wishes he did, because this is suddenly a conversation worth paying attention to.  He wondered if John told Sandra, three days ago or anytime since.  They’re close.  Dorian’s certain Sandra knew everything about Anna.

But it’s ridiculous, of course.  To compare himself to Anna--to even think it is foolish.  They couldn’t be more different.

“I want you to check in tomorrow morning,” Sandra is saying.  “If anything happens tonight--anything at all--I’d better hear about it from you before I see it on the news.”

“Nothing’s going to happen,” John says.  “They’re software thieves; what do you think they’re gonna do?  Steal my phone?”

“They could steal Dorian,” Sandra says.

John scoffs.  “He has a gun, same as the rest of us.  No one’s gonna touch him.”

“Check in again tomorrow morning,” Sandra tells him.  “And don’t underestimate anyone.”

“Yeah,” John says.  “You too.”  It’s an unconventional signoff, but that’s typical of John’s conversations with Sandra.  He clearly feels it’s his job to protect her as much as hers is to protect him.  Dorian could wish that consideration extended to her professional life: public perception of her is weakest where John is involved.

“Hey,” John says, closer than before.  He’s looking over Dorian’s shoulder again, watching the code trace like it can tell him what Dorian’s chasing.  “You heard her; we’re off the clock.”

Dorian should point out that he’s never truly off the clock.  That by saving him the commute, John has effectively extended his workday.  If he’s not charging, he should be tracking their “software thieves,” as John calls them.

Instead he says, “This can run with minimal supervision if there’s somewhere else you want to be.”  Being John’s shield is his primary function now, thanks to the introduction of the MXs.  The loss of autonomy grated at first, but John treats him more and more like the partners of old, and Dorian finds he’s willing to give up maximum case efficiency if it means John defers more easily to him when he asks.

“Dinner,” John says.  “I need something to eat.  And then--”  The hesitation is barely perceptible, but Dorian knows the rhythm of John’s language by now.  “I was thinking a movie.”

The juxtaposition isn’t lost on him.  John has just gotten them a night off, a night away, and he proposed dinner and a movie to fill the time.  Everything about it was logical and reportable, right up until that hesitation.

Dorian turns away from the holographic monitor.  He’s already said what he wants John to hear, and he has no reason to think that bringing it up again will change John’s response.  The hesitation could be because John didn’t mean to remind him or because he did, but the answer is the same either way.

“Which movie are we seeing?” Dorian asks.

***

It takes John less than 24 hours to discover the flamethrower.  Dorian should have known.  John actively seeks out trouble, and he was on his best behavior all evening.  Rudy would say that the scales had to balance eventually.

Dorian programmed the dragon with a preference for John above all others.  He didn’t expect that preference to override the instructions to report John’s movements, to alert Dorian in the event of danger, and above all to call for backup when John inevitably needs it.  Dorian knows John’s insubordination is contagious.  He didn’t anticipate the dragon falling victim to it so quickly.

***

“Dee, hey.”

It’s John’s voice whispering in his ear, which is remarkable and unexpected.  Dorian opens his eyes in Pod 16 of the hotel charging bay and finds John exactly as close as he sounds.  Local time is 03:37, and John’s heartbeat is irregular.

“Don’t say anything,” John whispers, and Dorian hears it for the warning it is.  He closes his mouth.  “They know about us.  Come upstairs with me.”

John’s fingers are the slightest bit clammy where they rest on Dorian’s neck, awkward tenderness that’s entirely out of character.  His tone is strained, and hostage protocols take over even as Dorian reaches out to the dragon.  It’s not transmitting, but he can see it on the floor at John’s feet: active and enabled, with traces of scorch that weren’t there when Dorian acquired it.

Dorian disengages from the pod, stepping forward only when John makes room for him to do so.  John is clearly being coerced, but his body language begs Dorian to come instead of warning him to stay.  So he does.

He takes note of the occupied pods as they pass, the gamers in the corner and the hacker in a hoodie at Pod 22.  It’s an empty pod, and Dorian identifies the hacker as an Autonomous Authentics panelist.  The panel he and John crashed yesterday morning, nearly disbanding it before Dorian--and the volunteer running after them with visitor’s badges--made John take a seat and convinced them all it was a cosplay.

Almost all of them.  The illegal re-distribution of corporate programming isn’t what they’re here to stop, and if a group of retro hobbyists wants to strip the private code from algorithms that make their synthetic cats act more like the real thing, Dorian knows his partner doesn’t care.  John’s looking for the underground, the hardliners threatening him and his: the ones cleaning military code, reprogramming front line bots without the possessive identifiers and making them disappear.

Dorian’s found them.  Keeping John from realizing that has taken up most of the case.  He’s careful not to catch the hacker’s eye but all of John’s stress indicators rise when Dorian looks in that direction.  With no other identification, Dorian would assume that this is John’s coercer.

The hacker turns to follow them before they’ve even cleared the bay.  They have two seconds’ interruption in the line of sight when Dorian follows John through the doors, and John grabs his arm and leans in, intimate and strange when he whispers, “I lied and I need you to back me up.  Kiss me?”

Dorian thinks it wasn’t supposed to be a question.  “Anytime,” he says, and that wasn’t supposed to be an answer.  But it makes John’s breath huff against his ear, maybe amused, certainly not angry, and John reaches up to cup Dorian’s cheek before he presses their lips together.

The doors open behind them and the hacker wanders out.  Dorian hears measured footsteps moving in the opposite direction: not in a hurry, but not hesitating either.  When John stills, gentle in Dorian’s space, quiet and apologetic all the same, Dorian kisses him again.

John participates, and it feels like it’s real.  Like he’s willing.  But Dorian doesn’t have anything to compare it to, so he’s hardly qualified to judge.

“Come upstairs,” John murmurs.  He’s more relaxed now rather than less.  Dorian doesn’t push, and neither of them says anything else until they reach John’s room.  The dragon sticks to his side the entire time and nothing Dorian does makes it budge.

John makes a circling motion with his hand as soon as he locks his door.  Dorian turns his attention from the dragon to the room, scanning, and it comes up empty.  “Clear,” he says.

“Okay,” John says.  Now he sounds more irritated than anything.  “Did you know that the bot stealers are robot rights activists?”

Dorian weighs the consequences of his reply.  He’s always meant to keep John free from suspicion, but if the dragon was spitting fire at someone then John’s life was in danger and Dorian didn’t even know.  He can’t protect John from everything.

“Yes,” Dorian says at last.

John glares at him.  “And when were you going to tell me?”

Dorian shouldn’t have to pause.  He’s thought this through endlessly, refreshing the variables and probabilities daily, if not hourly.  Earlier this week, he thought that telling John he loves him would at least lock one of the spinning numbers into position.  For better or worse, one of the unknowns would become a constant.

Then John took the dragon, accepting Dorian’s constant proxy without complaint, touched him and took him out and let Dorian pick the movie.  Now Dorian can’t even tell if John wants to kiss him or not, if he’s wanted to all along or if it’s just one of those things John doesn’t protest because there are people out there trying to kill him.

Dorian feels more alone every day, and nothing is constant anymore.

“I assumed you would remember this three months from now,” Dorian says.  “I didn’t think it would take you more than a few days to put it together after I disappeared.”

John doesn’t stop staring.  “After you disappeared,” he repeats.

“The review board won’t renew my term again,” Dorian says.  “You’re stable and I’m obsolete.  I’m running on jerry-rigged parts as it is, and you don’t need a DRN anymore.  They’ll shut me down and assign you someone new.”

“That’s not gonna happen,” John says.

“That’s exactly what’s going to happen,” Dorian tells him.  “Only I don’t plan on letting them turn me off this time.”

John is willful and stubborn but he isn’t stupid.  “You got a code stripper.”

“Without a government identifier,” Dorian says, “I’m just another DRN.  Sold to the highest bidder, traded, maybe left to run down.  We’re ten-year-old technology now.  No one cares what happens to us.”

“I care,” John snaps.  “What the hell, Dorian.”

“I don’t want you implicated,” Dorian says.

“I don’t want you gone!” John shouts back.  “Tuesday, in the car, what was that?  Was that goodbye?”

Tuesday is four days ago, now.  Time keeps passing, counting down the hours until the end of everything he’s known.  “That was the truth,” Dorian says.

John looks furious, but Dorian’s familiar with the expression of helplessness in disguise.  “The truth isn’t enough!  We’re partners!  You think you can just ditch me and I won’t notice?  I’ll let you go because I didn’t say ‘I love you’ the first time?”

Dorian raises his eyebrows, and John reads his expression just as easily.

“You know how I feel,” John snaps.  “You’ve always known, so don’t give me that look.  We’re in this together.  You got that?”

“Are we?”  Dorian doesn’t doubt John’s loyalty; he’s seen it demonstrated time and again.  He does doubt John’s understanding of what he’s up against.  

Denial doesn’t make John a fool.  It doesn’t make him adaptable, either, and John’s always labeled himself “old-fashioned.”  He knows how to fight for a partner.  Dorian doesn’t think he knows how to fight for a robot.

“I was just abducted by your pal in the sweatshirt to give you a shot at self-determination,” John says.  “So yeah.  I think they’re gonna make this about me whether you want them to or not.”

Dorian didn’t consider the possibility that anyone helping him might also try to hinder John.  He should have.  “What happened?” he asks, glancing down at the dragon.  It’s rolled over on its back, staring up at John while its tail swishes idly back and forth.  It could hardly look less like a guard dog.

“Your dragon happened,” John says.  “Someone got into the room, and it turns out ‘fire-breathing lizard that knows karate’ beats ‘random activist with a taser.’”

“Yet you were still abducted,” Dorian says.

“Well, even a dragon can’t beat five activists with tasers and an EMP,” John mutters, but he kicks at the dragon’s tail in a way that looks almost affectionate.  When the dragon curls its tail around his ankle, he doesn’t pull away.  “Tried, though.  Must have rebooted on its own, came after them like the wrath of hell.”

“It’s programmed to protect you,” Dorian says.

John’s gaze is fixed on him before he even finishes speaking.  “Believe me,” John says.  “I got that.”

It’s unclear whether Dorian is supposed to say something now or not, so he doesn’t.

After a moment, John adds, “I told them that.  Seemed to confuse them when I said it was yours, so I said we were… you know.”

Dorian doesn’t know, but he can guess.  John said he lied, and he needed Dorian to make it plausible.  Dorian doubts anything that involves kissing John is as much of a lie as John thinks it is.

John looks away, but he doesn’t stop talking.  “I said if anyone’s going to stand in the way of your self-determination,” he tells the wall, “I’m the last person they should be looking at.”

Dorian is very aware that the only thing John has ever told him to do is to stop talking.  It’s the only order John has ever tried to give.  He insults Dorian’s intelligence and capabilities in a hundred other ways, and he bosses Dorian around as much as he does anyone else--but the difference is in the similarity.  John treats Dorian the same way he treats his human coworkers.

Except for the significantly higher degree of familiarity he expresses in Dorian’s presence, but that seems to have grown independently of any efforts to control his behavior.

“They wanted to put it to you,” John is saying.  He’s still frowning at the wall.  “I told them police bots don’t react well to strangers waking them up.”

“That’s the first thing you’ve said that isn’t true,” Dorian observes, and it makes John look back at him with a half-smile.

“Yeah, well,” he says.  “It worked.  I guess.  Thanks for… you know.  Playing along.”

“I assume you could identify them,” Dorian says.  “Abducting a police officer is at least Class C.”

“It crossed my mind,” John agrees.  “But I’ve seen that sweatshirt before. Yesterday when you were chasing stories--they helped you.  Didn’t they.”  It isn’t a question, but Dorian knows the answer matters.

“Yes,” he says carefully.  “But--”  He’s at a loss because the words for this are so implausible.  So obvious.  No android should need to say, “I don’t want my freedom at the expense of yours.  You don’t have to give up anything for me.”

John laughs.  Dorian only realizes he’s smiling after it happens, because that’s the kind of automatic response John has instilled in him.  It’s a previously unrecognized personal protocol: John’s laughter causes him to smile.

It’s the only response he gets, but this time Dorian thinks he understands.

***

John brings the dragon to the precinct with him on Monday.  It idles under his desk and Sandra doesn’t notice for two days.  Richard notices immediately and ignores it for much longer.  Valerie seems to enjoy it, but Dorian suspects that she mostly likes the surprised expressions people get when they realize it’s not a sculpture.  The MXs give it wide berth.

The dragon moves out from under John's desk eventually, but only to perch on top of it, silent and glittering like a promise.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic]Quiet Mode](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3803935) by [readbyjela (jelazakazone)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jelazakazone/pseuds/readbyjela)




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